June 19 — A 10-year-old boy who had been
abandoned by his parents survived for two years in a cave
with a pack of stray dogs who scavenged for food with him
and may even have suckled him, child care workers say.

The boy, thrown out of his home by abusive parents at
the age of five, ran with 15 strays in the southern port
town of Talcahuano after he escaped from a care center two
years ago.

"He lived in a cave with dogs and roamed the
streets for food with them. He would eat out of garbage
cans and find leftovers," Delia Delgatto, head of
Chile's National Child-care Service, told Reuters Monday.

She said earlier reports by the police that the boy had
been brought up by dogs since he was a baby had turned out
to be off the mark. "He wasn't reared by the dogs as
such, he lived with them in a cave," she said.

The boy, who has not been named, threw himself into the
wintry cold waters of the southern Pacific Ocean on
Saturday to escape from police who had been alerted to his
case by the municipality.

"A police officer dived into the water and saved
him," a spokesman for the police said. He said the
dogs looked after the boy: "They were like his
family."

The child, dubbed "Dog Boy" by the Chilean
media, spent a day in a hospital in the city of Concepcion
and was then taken to a child care center.

"He's showing signs of depression, is aggressive
and is not speaking much although he does know how to
speak," Delgatto said. "He was dressed almost in
rags, was dirty and had filthy hair."

The police spokesman said the boy had drunk milk from
the breasts of one of the female dogs, but Delgatto said
she did not know whether he had been suckled or not.
"We can't tell whether he was or wasn't," she
said.

Photographs taken on Monday showed the boy, dark
skinned with black hair, holding a child's crayon drawing
of a pack of dogs. Two of his front teeth were broken and
he had what appeared to be a scar on his left cheek.